Is your partner a narcissist? You may not know how to tell, but even worse, you may be thinking that you are the crazy one. Narcissists work hard to distort our reality to make their reality feel safer.

So what is a narcissist? Someone who preens in front of the mirror all day in admiration? NOT! Ask yourself this: is your partner intensely angered by anything that seems to suggest that he or she might have a flaw? Narcissists will do anything, including brutalizing their own family, to maintain their own feeling that others see them as without any flaws. And, narcissists have extreme and illogical sensitivities, sometimes connecting the most minute observations with their intense fears of being seen as flawed. Narcissists will strain every muscle to meet their own "flawless" image, and demean or destroy anyone or anything who casts any doubt on this image. If you see this dynamic in your partner, family member, coworker, or friend, you are very probably dealing with a narcissist.

Overcome the Love Locking You In

Many of us ended up in relationships with a narcissist because, in the beginning, our partners held up a false front. Many of us felt or thought that we had met our soul mate; found the perfect partner; met that one special person in the universe. It's no surprise that we can fall in love with someone like this!

Later, usually after we've made a binding commitment like marriage, or sometimes after children being born, a job change, or other major life changes, our narcissist partner shows a completely different side. The person who was once perfect now can become angry, demeaning, demanding, and harshly critical. When alcohol or drugs are involved, the substance abuse usually takes a big step up, too. I talk about this dynamic in my book on disordered behavior, Meaning from Madness. From someone we have deep feelings for, these actions are brutal. Yet we may still have strong feelings of love pulling us to that person. Talk about being torn!

At some point, many of us realize this situation needs to change, but feelings are not chosen. How can you overcome the love that pulls you to a narcissist who is abusing you?

While you can't turn those feelings off like a switch, you can learn to understand where those feelings come from, and how our minds create them, and then set the stage for new feelings to develop - hopefully toward someone who's better for us. At first this issue was a chapter in my book, Tears and Healing, but it was so important it eventually became its own short book, In Love and Loving It - Or Not! The really sad part is that our minds create these feelings so that we'll be motivated to engage in a relationship that meets our emotional needs, yet those same feelings can end up locking us in, pulling back again into a broken relationship that just can't fill those needs! Its like a trap, one that we need new understanding to get out of.

Deal with the Abuse

Narcissists, like all disordered people, aren't just hurtful. They also spin our reality to make theirs less painful. They project their problems onto us, and blame us for what they do. After a while it becomes hard to distinguish what is real from what is being projected and what is being distorted. We begin to doubt our reality and question whether we're the crazy ones. What's more, narcissists hide their problems very effectively, concealing their disease from most people, causing us further confusion.

The truth is, THEY'RE NOT RIGHT. But they feel better when they can get us to carry the burden of their illness and their behavior.

After talking personally with many people in phone consultation, I found that people also need a way of making some sense of their abusive narcissist partner's actions. Though their actions make no sense from the perspective of a healthy person, there is something inside them that motivates them. After explaining this many times, I wrote a companion book, Meaning from Madness, which explains what makes abusive people act as they do, explains the psychological defense mechanisms they use which cause them to see a different reality than we see, and explains how alcohol and drug use - so painfully common among them - compounds these disordered patterns. I consider Meaning from Madness to be the second essential piece of this puzzle, and there is a link to its page on the right of this paragraph.

Narcissism is not what it appears to be.

It appears to be a falling in love with oneself. Thinking others are inferior. Cocky. Condescending. Arrogant.

Advertisement




Nothing could be further from the truth. Narcissism is the precise opposite of self-love. It is, in fact, a tragedy of self-loathing.

Narcissus is not punished by the gods because he falls in love with himself. No, he is punished because he looks into a pool of water and falls in love with his image.

Why would someone fall in love with their image? Because the reality of self is broken and wounded. Painful and unbearable. Even terrifying. Blind infatuation with one's image is a strategy not of self-love but of self-hatred. It is an escape. A committed narcissist defends those images at all cost because his ultimate commitment is to avoid seeing and knowing himself.

Attempt to look behind the images and you will suffer the narcissist's rage. He will control, demean, belittle, withhold and withdraw. Turn passive-aggressive. The aggrandizements will actually escalate. If necessary, the narcissist will attempt to ruin you.

In the case of pathological narcissism (thankfully rare), the narcissist might try to destroy you, or talk you into destroying yourself. Ask the surviving relatives of The Family, headed by Charles Manson (California, 1969). Ask the surviving relatives of The People's Temple, headed by the Rev. Jim Jones (Guyana, 1978). Folks with an insufficient sense of self are vulnerable to guys like this.

Groupies help a narcissist keep the image polished and running. Groupies need this guy's image as much as he does.

But more commonly, the trump card of the ordinary narcissist is walking away. Your punishment for daring to inquire about the person behind the image is that you will be abandoned.

Notice the exclusive use of masculine pronouns. I'm not a sexist; it's deliberate. In our culture, an overwhelming disproportion of narcissism is represented in men. There are observable dynamics in Western Civilization that virtually guarantee most modern males will spend their lives struggling with narcissistic features in their personality. (Or not struggling, if they're too narcissistic to care.)

I've stashed a title for the book I want to write about narcissism. It will be called "I Dare You, How Dare You." That's the game, see. The narcissist will slowly escalate behaviors of control and entitlement to see if you'll notice. He'll be selfish. Oblivious. Demanding. He'll sulk and withdraw if he doesn't get his way. His behavior presupposes his knowledge of the way things ought to be.

This part of the game is called "I dare you." Meaning, I dare you to set a boundary with me. In fact, I won't respect you if you continue to let me treat you this way. Go on. I double-dog dare you to call my behavior into question.

So, if you respect yourself at all, you call the narcissist to account.

Now comes part two: How dare you! The narcissist denies, flares up, defends, ranting incredulity. You hurt his feelings. You've misunderstood him.

If you capitulate under the assault of "how dare you," he'll lose respect for you. If you confront him, he'll withdraw in a huff because you're so critical and nobody really understands him.

Good luck, girls.

I often marvel that women fall in love with us guys at all. I think it's a miracle that so many of you keep coming home and wanting to stay with us.

My guess is you know us better than we could imagine. Maybe we'd be frightened to consider that the jig is up, that you already know we're full of horse patootie.

Maybe we can't comprehend the part of your love that is compassion for our frailty. Maybe you saw long ago that "arrogant bastard" is a cheap disguise.

Maybe, on some intuitive level, women just know what us poor schlub guys ought to know about ourselves -- that before narcissism was this boorish behavior draining the patience of this nice woman, it was an attempt to survive a terrible psychic injury and its aftermath: insecurity, self-doubt and self-hatred.

The fix for narcissism is to love oneself more.